Drilling to start as soon as next year

London-based oil and gas company, Energean has made another commercial gas discovery in an exploration well offshore Israel.

The company is moving to start drilling as soon as next year. After a commercial gas discovery was confirmed last month within the Hermes exploration well off Israel, the Stena IceMAX drill ship moved to Block 12 – Olympus Area – to drill the Zeus structure.

The location is estimated to contain 10 -12 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas of gross prospective unrisked gas resources in the A/B/C sands. This comes on the heel of Energean’s decision in June 2022 to drill two more exploration wells in waters offshore Israel.

In an update this week, Energean disclosed that a commercial gas discovery has been made in the Zeus-01 exploration well preliminary estimates indicating the structure contains 13.3 bcm of recoverable natural gas resources. The company is now undertaking a post-well analysis of the data collected during drilling.

Certified contingent resources

Furthermore, Energean’s Reserve Auditor, DeGolyer & MacNaughton has certified contingent resources of 11.75 bcm in the Athena discovery made in May 2022, an increase of 3.75 bcm on the company’s eight bcm preliminary estimate. This increase follows post-well studies undertaken on data collected during the drilling process.

Moreover, the results from the Zeus well and the Athena post-well analysis provide Energean with “additional confidence” about the volumes and commerciality of the Olympus area, thus the firm is now progressing with its field development plan. The company expects to provide an update on the total resource volumes within the Olympus area, taking into account the uplifted volumes in both Zeus and Athena, in early 2023.

The Stena IceMax drilling rig has now moved to Block 23 to drill Energean’s sixth well in this drilling campaign, which is the Hercules prospect, where the Miocene gas prospect will be targeted.

Energean’s CEO, Mathios Rigas, reports that, “following the start of production from our Karish reservoir last week, I am pleased that our drilling programme, which has now delivered five successful wells from five, continues to deliver value, ensuring security of supply and energy competition across the region.